Volver
Raimunda and her sister Sole live nearby and they both miss their mother Irene, who died several years ago in a house fire along with their father. One day, Irene returns to her home town in order to fix the situations she couldn't resolve during her life.
18 January 1968, Málaga, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain
4 July 1964, Spain
1947, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain
6 October 1971, Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
6 July 1980, Talavera de la Reina, Toledo, Castilla La Mancha, Spain
12 January 1985, Madrid, Spain
15 September 1945, Madrid, Madrid, Spain
11 December 1930, Madrid, Madrid, Spain
4 September 1968, Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
November 16, 2012
Almodóvar's phantasms are emotionally anchored so the story never gets away from its characters -- just when you suspect he might have overplayed his hand he stages a clever, surprising inversion to tie the film together.June 21, 2008
At the center of this hectic universe, [Cruz] never misses a step and may even elevate what Almodovar originally conceived.January 19, 2007
It's clever and entertaining. It's marvelously deft, but never daffy. It works well enough, despite feeling like the most conventional film this great, envelope-pushing Spanish director has ever made.February 28, 2008
Pedro Almodovar's Volver is amazingly bright, fresh and clean for a film dealing with murder, adultery, incest, malignant disease and the occasional supernatural apparition.December 22, 2006
The Return rattles its chains for a spell, but it doesn't linger -- it quickly leaves.February 03, 2007
Even if Volver sounds too high-concept for you, know that Almodóvar is smart enough not to rest on laughs alone, extending his premise to dark, though occasionally tidy psychological territory.December 22, 2006
Volver is rich, crazy, ambitious and filled with heaven and earth in a way that no other filmmaker can touch. It is a flawed beauty, but the beauty is so much more important than the flaws.December 28, 2006
Pedro Almodóvar whipstitches a movie from patches of those mother-daughter melodramas Mildred Pierce, Bellissima and Two Women and makes it seamless and original, funny as it is fierce, breathtaking as it is life-affirming.August 28, 2009
Almodóvar's maturity navigates not only the thin lines between comedy and drama and between body and spirit, but also between rebellion and acceptanceApril 27, 2007
Hollywood, take notice: If you hand Penelope Cruz a role with more depth than the paper it's printed on, this is what you'll get.July 02, 2009
It's up to charm to twinkle our attention away from the loose threads and daytime TV plotting.May 12, 2008
With all its unexpected twists and turns, the story still unfolds naturally, like some gaudy Mediterranean flower.